New Photographer's Laptop: The Lenovo W700

Last week saw the first laptop company to "pander" to professional photographers in public. Lenovo introduced the brand new Lenovo ThinkPad W700 with a number of features that target the mobile photographer. And this is indeed targeted for working professionals, as the starting price is $2950 and can go as high as $5600 if you select all the optional hardware upgrades.

This is a mobile workstation laptop, not a lightweight "data mule" :) If you can afford to buy this, you can probably afford to hire an assistant to carry it around for you because it weighs over eight pounds :-)


Photographer Priority W700 Specifications
+17" WXGA+ 200-NIT or WUXGA 400-NIT TFT
+built-in Pantone Color Sensor (optional) [first laptop to offer this]
+built-in WACOM palm-rest 12x8cm Digitizer with pen (optional) [first laptop to offer this]
+NVidia Quadro FX-2700 (512mb) or FX-3700 (1gb)
+dual-link DVI-D, VGA, DisplayPort but no HDMI
+DDR3 memory (Hello Photoshop)
+up to 8gb memory
+Data Redundancy (RAID) (optional)
+full-disk encryption
+quad-core Extreme processor (optional)
+fingerprint reader
+CompactFlash read (expansion slot) (optional)
+built-in memory card reader (7 in 1)
+ISV certified


General Lenovo W700 Specifications
+Choice of Intel Core 2 Duo T9400, T9600 or Extreme X9100 3GHz
+Choice of Vista or XP Pro
+PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (up to 8gb)
+Choice of internal RAID 0/1, or not
+Hard drives up to 5400rpm (320gb) or 7200rpm (200gb) with FDE
+optional SSD (solid state drives) up to 64gb
+Intel Turbo Memory 2gb (hard drive)
+DVD burner or BluRay burner
+ExpressCard (34mm), optional 54mm or smartcard
+Intel WiFi Link 5300 (3x3 AGN)
+9 cell Li-Ion Battery
+optional mini-dock
+trackpoint (red)
+fullsize keyboard with numeric keypad
+integrated SXGA webcam
+weighs over eight pounds
+1 Year Depot Warranty

The Lenovo website states that this ships in about four weeks from now and it is available with a business lease as well.


Reactions around the net
This was formally announced, quite fittingly, at SIGGRAPH says CNet Crave.

Rob Galbraith applauds the specs, while Gizmodo has giant pictures of the laptop. Not quite 1:1 macro, but almost big enough to fill the screen :)

More on this at laptop website NotebookReview, the dpreview of laptop reviews? :)

To see scale, one flickr user has uploaded a picture of an EeePC 901 sitting on top of the W700.

For more, be sure to check all the posts on Technorati with the W700 tag.


Reactions to the Lenovo W700
A long discussion of the announcement in the dpreview News forum.

This is a fun thread, it's in the Mac forum at dpreview, the Mac users are comparing this laptop to their MacBook Pro.

And how about the competition asks another thread.

It's four kilos exclaims a weight-conscious forum user. Well, it's not exactly meant to be a pocket PC competitor responds another user.